Monday, September 30, 2013

The
U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced in early September
of this year that its Voyager I probe has become the first human made object to
enter interstellar space. The announcement came after scientists reported evidence
that the unmanned spacecraft has crossed the magnetic boundary separating our
solar system from the rest of the galaxy. Voyager I was launched more than thirty-six
years ago, embarking on a journey to give us close-up views of Jupiter and
Saturn before heading toward deep space.

Following
that announcement, a friend and former parishioner wrote to me with some
thoughtful questions:

To me, this
[the exploration of interstellar space] has cosmic and religious ramifications –
does space go on forever? If not, what? What is out there? What faith is out there,
if any?

The
questions evoked memories of a sermon that I preached almost three decades ago
entitled, “How big is your God?” The sermon, with more questions than answers, inquired:

·Is
God was one among many gods, each with a part of creation?

·Do
the life forms that almost certainly exist on other planets have religious
figures or saviors similar to Jesus?

·How
can we set aside anthropocentric (humans at the center of everything) and
geocentric (the earth at the center of creation) biases (astronomers tend to
think that our solar system is to one side of the cosmos, not its center)?

I’m
not sure that most of the congregation understood the sermon; one couple who
did told the senior chaplain that they would not return to the chapel if I were
to preach again, they were that distraught over the content of my sermon.

What
can we say?

First,
we must begin with our ignorance. Neither the Christian tradition nor
scriptures say anything about life on another planet, let alone life outside
this solar system. Judaism offers a constructive example at this point. Jews
have a clear understanding of what their tradition teaches (or, more accurately
for most Jews, the spectrum of teachings). Judaism, however, makes no statement
about non-Jews, finding their scriptures and tradition silent on the subject. Christians
can be clear that in Jesus they recognize what is for them God’s definitive
self-revelation. We do not need to invent or hypothesize about whether the God
we worship is the only God, etc., but will do well to learn to live with our unanswerable
questions.

Second,
we can reject as human inventions any claims about God or gods and life on
other planets. For example, the claim of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints (the Mormons) that faithful males can become a savior, similar to
Jesus, for their own planet is at best wild conjecture and more probably simple
foolishness. We simply do not have any sources of verifiable information about
life outside the solar system nor, for that matter, about God (belief in God
depends upon trust in others or personal experience, as I have previously
argued in Ethical Musings posts).

Third,
the best religious and spiritual teachings consequently emphasize implications
for life in the present. How can I, you, or anyone else live more abundantly,
completely, and fully today? Questions about what is over the horizon – whether
the horizon marked by physical death, the horizon demarcated by the solar
system’s boundary, or the horizon of our knowledge – have utility only in
shaping our inquiries into the unknown. Genuine religion (or spirituality)
gives one courage to live in the face of the unknown, wisdom to discern what is
knowable from the unknown, and love with which to embrace the life and the
good.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

When
people search for a church to join, one early stage decision in the process is
whether to find a denominational or non-denominational church. Are
denominations important? Is it good for a congregation to be part of a
denomination?

On
the one hand, independent, non-denominational megachurches and their pastors
too often feature in media headlines, as reporters and editors almost gloat in
uncovering the latest scandal. Even when there is no scandal, the retirement or
death of an independent church pastor (regardless of the congregation's size) will
often set that congregation on an irreversible downward glide path toward
institutional oblivion.

On
the other hand, conventional wisdom has it that denominations in general, and
mainline Protestant denominations like The Episcopal Church in particular, are dying
anachronisms.

Are
denominations important?

Denominations
provide vital ministries not readily available to non-denominational
congregations. Indeed, some non-denominational megachurches have spawned
networks of linked congregations becoming, in essence, a new expression of
denominationalism, e.g., both Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard have linked congregations
scattered across the U.S.

Among
the important ministries that denominations provide, ministries that can make a
denominationally affiliated congregation more appealing to many church shoppers
than is a non-denominational congregation, are:

Continuity across geography
and time of liturgical style, theological tradition, missional emphases,
and organizational patterns;

Connectivity to an
expression of Christ's body larger than the local congregation (many
denominations are national entities with strong ties to their counterparts
in other countries, such as The Episcopal Church and the Anglican
Communion);

Providing specialized and
often costly ministries and missions that few if any congregations,
including megachurches, can individually resource and fund, e.g., college
chaplaincies, new church starts, seminaries, church related institutions
(charities, hospitals, colleges, and other schools), etc.

Formation, supervision, and
accountability of clergy (scandals, such as covering up child abuse, do
occur in denominations but in a healthy denomination the larger body works
to prevent problems, deal appropriately with incompetence and misbehavior,
and offer healing to those hurt);

Requiring audits, mandating
adherence to accepted accounting methods, and use of democratic decision
making, thereby substantially reducing the likelihood of financial misuses
and abuses, as well as establishing some checks on clergy and laity
exercising unhealthy dictatorial powers in the ecclesial community.

Denominations
receive a bad press for at least three reasons. First, the important ministries
that denominations provide are not news. Denominations have served
congregations in those ways for generations. News, for the media, typically connotes new, adverse developments,
not reportage about steady, ongoing positive work. However, no press is, in
effect, tantamount to bad press, as denominations and congregations become
unnoticed, i.e., taken for granted.

Third,
denominational clergy prefer humility to the limelight, seeking to keep the
spotlight on Christ. Their congregations often occupy legacy buildings,
frequently in disrepair and no longer occupying a prime location. To survive,
the non-denominational congregation, which is usually a new congregation, must
grow. Many of these congregations decide that the optimal way to grow consists in
finding a dynamic, personable, and attractive pastor to lead a program attuned
to today's culture and housed in an attractive, conveniently located facility.
The pastor becomes the congregation's focal point.

Some
Episcopalians and members of other denominations seem uncomfortable with their
identity, ministries, and traditions; these people push for change, and more
change, but many times fail to communicate, at least to me, what they hope the
changes will achieve. Others of us, confident that we have it right, choose to
persevere with business as usual, opposing most or all change. Yet others have
opted to disengage (and, in many cases, never engaged in the first place) from
the denomination, myopically regard their local congregation as their Church, and view both the diocese
and national church as unnecessary and expensive encumbrances.

Change
is inevitable (cf. Maria Evans' post Change: Unsafe at any speed). Some change will happen
regardless of whether we deem it desirable. In a recent Daily Episcopalian
post, I predicted that The Episcopal Church would not issue a new edition of
the Book of Common Prayer. Responses to my prediction varied, but two groups of
responses amused me: normative responses (i.e., those proffering a value
judgment on the importance of keeping a printed prayer book) and responses that
presumed people using electronic media were young. My prediction is
descriptive, not normative. Printed books are quickly and irreversibly becoming
relics of an earlier era. I personally like books and treasure the Book of
Common Prayer. The people I have observed opting to follow the liturgy on a
smartphone or tablet are, more often than not, forty or older.

However,
we can influence some change. Denominations provide valuable, essential
ministries; otherwise, non-denominational congregations would not develop their
own analogue to denominational structures.

Identifying
and focusing on the core competencies and contributions of denominations could
beneficially guide decisions about reimagining, restructuring, and mission
funding. Conversely, denominations should scrap images, structures, and
programs that do not directly support core competencies and contributions.
Important questions, some raised by people who have commented on previous Daily
Episcopalian posts, include:

Which dioceses are redundant
or unaffordable?

For what denominational
ministries and missions should volunteers rather than paid staffs take
responsibility (applies to both dioceses and the national Church)?

How can we best create a
flat, nimble, responsive structure focused on ministry and mission rather
than institutional maintenance (for some ideas, cf. my previous Daily
Episcopalian posts on reimagining the Church, parts 1 and 2)?

Finally, how can we
capitalize on our denomination's strengths to market The Episcopal Church
and its congregation to people who are church shopping?

Monday, September 23, 2013

The
neighborhood in which I live recently received new recycling bins from the city.
Now that people have the ne new, larger bins, the city will only collect
recyclables every other week, instead of weekly. The city uses trucks that have
a mechanical arm to empty the new bins, saving labor costs and helping to keep
property taxes in check.

On
my morning run the first day of the new schedule for collecting trash and
recyclables, I observed a surprising number of both the old and the new recycling
bins curbside. A couple of residents even had placed both the old and new bins
curbside. Our neighborhood, as indicated on the schedule, had only trash
collected the first week; the city collected the recyclables, along with the
trash, the following week but only from the new bins.

The
city distributed color-coded calendars and clearly worded guidance on when and
how the new collection policy would take effect. After noting the number of
people who had incorrectly followed the guidance, I reexamined the materials
the city had distributed, thinking that perhaps they were unclear. However, the
information was straightforward and simple.

Unsurprisingly,
when one residence got the schedule wrong, usually several of the neighbors
followed suit. Peer pressure affects most of us, not just the young.

Furthermore,
some of my neighbors object to the new bins, contending that the bins are too
large (the bins are on wheels and are smaller than the trash bins). I find the
new bins are a significant environmental improvement because they hold almost
four times the amount of material that the old bins held, encouraging recycling
rather than disposing of in the trash, which ends up in a landfill.

The
experience underscores how difficult people find change – even an uncomplicated,
rather incidental, well-explained change that offers ecological and potential
financial benefits. Yet our bodies and our world are constantly changing,
sometimes in life-altering ways. No wonder that so many of us find change
difficult!

I'm
reminder of the words of the preacher:

Vanity of vanities, says the
Teacher,

vanity of vanities! All is
vanity.

What do people gain from all the
toil

at which they toil under the sun?

A generation goes, and a
generation comes,

but the earth remains forever.

…

For everything there is a season,
and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to
die;

a time to plant, and a time to
pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to
heal;

a time to break down, and a time
to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to
laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to
dance;

a time to throw away stones, and
a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to
refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to
lose;

a time to keep, and a time to
throw away;

a time to tear, and a time to
sew;

a time to keep silence, and a
time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to
hate;

a time for war, and a time for
peace. (Ecclesiastes 1:2-4; 3:1-8 (NRSV))

Thursday, September 19, 2013

People
complain that more Americans do not pay federal income taxes. At first glance,
apparently 43% of Americans pay no federal income tax. However, the numbers
merit closer examination. Paying attention to the headline ignores the real
story.

Of households
who pay no federal income tax, 12.1% have incomes between $50,000 and $100,000
while 1.3% have incomes that exceed $100,000. In particular, "an estimated
798,000 households in the nonpayer group make between $100,000 and $200,000 a
year; 48,000 have incomes between $200,000 and $500,000; 3,000 make between
$500,000 and $1 million; and 1,000 households bring in more than $1
million." I
have little sympathy for these households.

However,
of the remaining 84.6% of households who pay no federal income tax and whose
income is less than $50,000, two-thirds of them (46 million households) have
incomes of less than $30,000. Remember, many of these households will pay
social security and Medicare taxes; many may also pay state or local income
taxes. Experts estimate that two-thirds of those who pay no tax at all are
elderly and not working. (Data and quotation are from Jeanne Sahadi, "43% pay no federal income taxes," CNNMoney, August 29,
2013.)

Why is
this important?

The Tea
Party movement and others decry what they perceive as an emerging entitlement
culture in the United States. For example, almost 50 million Americans now
receive food assistance, a staggering number that represents something between
1 in every 6 or 7 people who live in the U.S. Recognizing that 46 million
households have an income of less than $30,000 provides critical context for
the number of Americans who receive food assistance.

No less
a bastion of conservatism than the managing editor of Fortune, Andy Serwer, recently presented the following analysis as
part of his argument for raising effective tax rates on the wealthiest
Americans and increasing the capital tax gains rate:

The
federal minimum wage was last raised in July 2009 to $7.25 an hour (which works
out to $15,080 a year). Consider that in 1968 the minimum wage was $1.60, which
is $10.74 in 2013 dollars, or $22,339 a year. ("The Income Gap," Fortune, September 2, 2013, p. 10)

Let's
acknowledge that some people abuse the social safety net.

Nevertheless,
the data paints a painful picture of a deeply divided America, the haves and
the have-nots.

I'm
disturbed that we are not having meaningful public discourse about how to
create a more effective, compassionate social safety net with a more effective
incentive for self-reliance. On the one hand, the large and growing disparity
between the affluent and the poor/hungry in this nation raises significant
moral issues. The disparity cannot bode well for the nation's future. On the
other hand, people who do not share part of the burden of funding the
government can easily begin to feel disconnected from the government, a
widespread problem in nations that receive large sums of foreign aid or non-tax
revenue. Similarly, recipients may begin to believe that the benefits they
receive are their right, producing households dependent upon government
largesse for multiple generations, a problem with which the United Kingdom now
struggles.

These three
graphs, reproduced from two articles in the Wall
Street Journal from August 31, 2012 that debated the system of entitlements
that has developed in the United States over the last fifty years underscore
the urgency of having this debate:

Perhaps
the best way to force such a discourse is a Constitutional amendment to require
that federal government expenditures not exceed tax revenues unless a
two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress agrees and the President signs
the legislation. Congress could override a Presidential veto with a
three-quarters majority in both houses. The high threshold for approving an
exception to expenditures exceeding tax revenues allows flexibility in case of
a national emergency. Passage of the amendment would most likely require years,
providing time for the federal government to move toward a balanced budget.

The
element of this proposal that I find most problematic is that it probably precludes
using government stimulus (i.e., deficit spending) to expedite a financial
return after a major recession or depression. Conversely, what I find most
attractive in the proposal is that it would stop (or at least slow) the erosion
of Congressional power by a powerful Presidency, prevent national bankruptcy by
forcing the nation to live within its means, and attempt to strengthen a
popular perception of government by, for, and of the people.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Scientists
have taken significant steps toward creating a human brain in the laboratory.
Using stem cells, scientists have grown clusters of brain cells about the size
of a BB that display characteristics of key areas including the hippocampus and
cerebral cortex and are reminiscent of a nine-week-old fetus' brain. The work
offers possibilities for individualized drug testing and probably paves the way
for further developments. (Laura Sanders, "Tiny
human almost-brains made in lab," Science
News, August 28, 2013)

This
research pushes the work done with mouse brains, reported in a previous Ethical
Musings post,
even closer to sharp ethical issues.

Humans
have found modifying human brains morally acceptable. Drugs can temporarily
alter a brain's functioning, sometimes legally and beneficially (e.g., an
antidepressant, an effort to prevent seizures, or to dissolve a brain clot) and
sometimes illegally and of questionable benefit (e.g., illegal hallucinogenics).
Surgery can permanently alter a brain or its functioning, sometimes
beneficially (e.g., to remove a clot or stop seizures) and sometimes of questionable
benefit (e.g., lobotomies to end depression).

Is
the creation of a human brain morally acceptable?

For
example, could brain replacement one day enable a brain-dead person to live
again? Although the body with the replacement brain would be the same, perhaps
even hosting a brain identical to the person's brain at birth, the experiences
recorded in the brain – which change the brain – would be different. The replacement
brain would have no memories or information about the person's previous
experiences, relationships, learning, etc. The person, in very many ways would
be and always remain a different person than before the brain trauma that preceded
the replacement. Brain replacement will not enable the brain-dead to live
again.

Alternatively,
could creation of a human brain represent a new frontier in human reproduction,
substituting a brain (and perhaps the rest of the body) grown in a lab for
sexual reproduction? This option has at least two major ethical problems.

First,
asexual human reproduction through cultivation of stem cells in a laboratory carries
with it all the disadvantages of most forms of asexual reproduction by
narrowing the gene pool. Nor is it apparent that people who could both afford
and would choose this form of reproduction represent either the best of Homo
sapiens or the preferred path for the species' future.

Second,
asexual human reproduction through cultivation of stem cells in a laboratory
also establishes the potential for genetic manipulation by the scientists
responsible for the process. Not only are the potential effects of that
manipulation exceedingly unpredictable given our limited understanding of how
thousands of genes interact with one but it is also not obvious that humans
have the moral wisdom or can look sufficiently far into the future to make choices
about the best path of human development.

In
sum, growing a human brain from stem cells puts the creature in the creator's role:
God set human sexual reproduction in motion through choosing to create the
cosmos using evolutionary processes; altering something that basic is so
fraught with unknown and unknowable dangers that it would be an act of human
hubris.

Incidentally,
other researchers have recently reported that poverty or wealth effects the
brain's functioning: in general, the affluent function better cognitively than
do the poor, perhaps, the researchers speculate because the poor's worries
about finances disrupt occupy their thoughts. The effects seem reversible.
Coming into sudden affluence restores cognitive functioning to its pre-poverty
level. (Bruce Bower, "Poverty
may tax thinking abilities," Science
News, August 29, 2013)

Friday, September 13, 2013

In
London’s West End last week, I saw War Horse. War Horse is Nick Stafford’s adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s novel
of the same name (which I have not read). I don’t know if the story is based on
an actual incident, but the play’s plot is a powerful witness to the brutality
and futility of war.

Watching
the play evoked memories of visiting World War I (WWI) battle sties at Verdun
and the Somme, touring re-created trenches in London’s Imperial War Museum, and
reading about the “war to end all wars.”

In
early WWI battles, Allied cavalry units charged entrenched German positions
defended by machine guns and armor. War
Horse, in part, is the story of a horse sold to the British Army and its
participation in such attacks.

WWI
also included the first documented use of chemical weapons in warfighting. Both
the Central Powers and the Allies used tearing agents (e.g., chloropicrin and
chloromethyl chloroformate), asphyxiants (e.g., chlorine and cyanide
compounds), and blistering agents (e.g., mustard gas). Of these weapons,
mustard gas was perhaps most feared, causing internal and external bleeding
that, over the course of several weeks, usually resulted in a very painful
death.

The
Iraqi military under Saddam Hussein utilized chemical weapons in Iraq’s 1988
war with Iran and against Kurdish Iraqis. In 1995, the Aum Shinrikyo religious
sect executed the last known chemical weapons attack prior to the use of
chemical weapons in Syria, releasing sarin in the Tokyo subway, killing twelve
and injuring over fifty-five hundred people. Press reports suggest that the
Syrian attacks also used sarin, but may have killed as many as 1400 people.

Nations
rarely act in ways that contravene their perceived national interests. International
bans against chemical weapons are no exception to that generalization. Although
the rhetoric about chemical weapon emphasizes the horrendous suffering that
chemical weapons cause, an international ban would never have achieved wide
support if chemical weapons were truly useful militarily. However, chemical
weapons depend upon the vagaries of the wind (no known water borne chemical
agent has been used), resulting in effects that are unpredictable and
unreliable. Furthermore, modern militaries, even with an international ban in
place, routinely practice defending against chemical attacks, using protective
clothing and other measures to reduce or avoid potential harm.

So
why does the United States draw a “red line” against Syrian use of chemical
weapons?

One
reason may be that the U.S. was hoping to dissuade Syria (or the rebels, if one
accepts Vladimir Putin’s assertion in a September 11, 2013, letter
to the New York Times that the rebels,
not the Syrian government, used the chemical weapons) from using chemical
weapons. Apparently, the threat of retaliation failed to provide sufficient
deterrence.

Another
reason, not mutually exclusive, may be that the U.S. wants to promote the rule
of law by encouraging groups to respect the international ban against chemical
weapons. Ironically, as Putin acidly observes in his letter,
the U.S. taking unilateral military action against Syria would violate other
provisions of international law, undercutting the integrity of its position as
an advocate of adhering to international norms and law.

Yet
a third, non-exclusive reason for the U.S. to oppose Syria’s use of chemical
weapons so aggressively is out of concern for preventing attacks against
Israel. When Iraq, then a U.S. supported ally, used chemical weapons against
Iran U.S. leaders did not call for decisive action against Iraq. Only when Iraq
ceased to be a U.S. ally, did the U.S. voice concerns and demand action to
eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, i.e., the U.S., like most
nations, tends to act in ways that support its perceived national interests.

Putin
called for the U.S. to support Syria turning over its chemical weapons to a
third party and to stop arming the rebels in lieu of the U.S. taking military
action against Syria. Some commentators have described Putin as tossing a “lifeline”
to Obama, offering a positive way out of an otherwise no win situation.

At
least two of the rebel groups opposed to President Assad’s Syrian forces are
groups that the U.S. has formally declared terror groups. Any action that
enables those groups to seize power directly, or to become part of a coalition
that seizes power, bodes ill for U.S. national interests, Israel, and Syria’s
diverse population. The potential exists for an even worse regime or chaos to
replace Assad’s evil regime.

In
War Horse, the boy, who had raised
the horse at the center of the plot, lies about his age to enlist in the
British Army so as to find his horse, which his father had sold to the Army at
the war’s beginning. The boy’s enduring love for his horse poignantly shows love’s
power and importance, even in the midst of horrendous slaughter. Helpless in
what appears a hopeless situation, he perseveres.

Although
the play offers no hint about the boy’s religious orientation, he models what
Christ, the Prince of Peace, calls his followers to incarnate in their
peacemaking: a hope that perseveres against all odds. Perhaps in Syria we can
today see a glimmer of hope that prayers, protests, letters, and other
expressions of concern will contribute to a resolution of the crisis that will entail
the destruction of chemical weapons, end nations arming both sides, and avoid
direct military action by any other nation.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Elizabeth
Bernstein, writing in the Wall Street
Journal, reports on a novel approach to finding happiness: cultivate
favorable memories of the past, but focus on moderately enjoying the present with
a moderately high orientation toward building a positive future ("A
Different Therapy to Find Greater Happiness," August 26, 2013).

The
method, called Time Perspective Therapy, has found its highest profile advocate
in Dr. Philip Zimbardo, a psychologist and Stanford University professor
emeritus. Zimbardo has developed a 56-item inventory, the Zimbardo
Time Perspective Inventory, to help people assess their perspective on
time. The inventory, available at this link,
is free, quick to take, and informative.

Unsurprisingly,
people locked into a negative past, who also have low present hedonism and high
future fatalism, are the unhappiest.

Conversely,
delayed gratification (part of a positive future orientation) observed in four
and five year old children correlates with better grades in school, scoring 250
points higher on the SAT, and happier family lives.

The
best news is that people can change their time perspective. Bernstein provided
a brief but suggestive synopsis of some of Zimbardo's recommendations for
helping people to change their time orientation:

A person
can raise a past-positive score, Dr. Zimbardo says, by focusing on the good in
your past: create photo albums, write letters of gratitude to people who
inspired you, start an oral history of your family.

Your
future orientation can get a boost by organizing your calendar or planning a
family vacation, actions that get you to envision and plan for a positive
future. And volunteering or becoming a mentor can help you see that your
actions can have a positive impact.

And you
can increase your present hedonism—selectively!—by doing something to balance
your mood, such as exercise or a nature walk. Also, reward your hard work with
an activity you enjoy: dinner with a friend, a massage, an afternoon playing
your favorite sport.

To lower
your past-negative scores you can work to silence your pessimistic inner critic
by meditating or keeping an ongoing list of all the good things in your life
right now. "It's thinking about what's good in your life now, rather than
what was bad in your life then," says Dr. Zimbardo.

And you
can reduce your future fatalistic perspective by learning a new skill or hobby
that allows you to see your change, and doing it with a partner—it's less
isolating and the other person can give you positive feedback.

Thinking
that Christianity demands or encourages a transcendental future orientation (i.e.,
happiness comes after death when one is in heaven) misconstrues Christianity. Jesus
taught that the Kingdom of God is now, in us. The promise of future reward does
not justify present suffering. Otherwise, a handful of self-sacrificing hedonists
could justify treating everyone else as their slaves, using them as a means of
satisfying every whim. These self-sacrificing hedonists would attempt to
convince everyone else of the merits of this system by emphasizing that their
present pleasures would pale in comparison to the heavenly delights that await
the vast majority at death.

What
is your time orientation? Can you rebalance your time orientation to lead a
happier, more abundant life?

Monday, September 9, 2013

Presume,
even if just for a couple of moments, that the prophets of doom are correct in
predicting that denominations – including The Episcopal Church (TEC) – are
living dinosaurs, anachronisms from a bygone era that will soon die off
completely. If accurate, those predictions invite, perhaps demand, a radical
rather than incremental reimagining of TEC because we have little to lose.
Post-radical reimagining, the worst possible scenario is that we have inadvertently
hastened TEC's demise as a denominational force. However, the best possible
scenario is that radical reimagining reinvents and reinvigorates TEC as a
twenty-first century missional force united by common prayer. Here are two
proposals.

First, TEC
might replace its formal, bicameral, hierarchical approach to governance with
highly decentralized, ad hoc, multiple open channels that social media makes
possible at little or no cost (imagine shattering rice bowls!). In this new inclusive
approach, dynamic, self-organizing groups with open membership would convene
around a task or shared interest. Groups would form, subdivide, multiply, and
dissolve when and as members deemed appropriate, superseding the existing
permanent agglomeration of TEC commissions, committees, and boards. Virtual
meetings, online polling (direct democracy displacing representative democracy),
and other electronic communication would advantageously eliminate most of the overhead
costs associated with our current approach to governance.

For
example, instead of only one group studying the theology of marriage, TEC could
capture the energy the subject generates and allow any number of self-selected
groups to grapple with the theology of marriage. The groups could all publish
their reports; the initial reports might approach a consensus opinion (surely
an indicator that the Spirit was at work!), a new group or groups might form to
develop a comprehensive report, people might be comfortable with plural views,
or a completely unexpected development might occur. An open-ended,
decentralized process creates space and time for discerning the Spirit in ways
that formal structures and tidy processes make difficult and improbable. Having
only one group study a subject, report its findings, and then General
Convention act decisively on that report perpetuates a chimera of common belief
better suited to the Christendom of yore than the post-modern individualism of
the twenty-first century.

TEC
might discover that the majority of contemporary Episcopalians regard the
elections, legislative processes, and budget debates in which we now invest
considerable time and money as unimportant and irrelevant. (As an experiment,
ask some Episcopalians what occurred in the last General Convention or
Executive Council meeting, or to name three key TEC mission programs.)

Attempts
to justify the importance of formal structures are both dated and circular. TEC
requires minimal structure to comply with state and federal law. Nor do our
Constitution and Canons interpose insurmountable obstacles. Eliminating most
elected positions will minimize the need for elections; we can conduct any
necessary elections electronically. Legislative processes are inherently
exclusive, costly, and self-perpetuating; most TEC members are neither engaged
nor invested in TEC's ministry or mission. Finally, the next proposal replaces
centralized finance and budgeting and with an entrepreneurial approach designed
to promote involvement and ownership. In sum, focusing our common life and
endeavors around celebratory worship, building community, spiritual formation,
and shared mission endeavors will achieve more for God than the status quo
does.

An open
structure maximizes breadth and expansiveness (no limit on participation),
honors an incarnational view of life (the Spirit can move through all
Episcopalians, not just elected representatives), and is continuous with the
past (retaining democratic discernment of the God's leading) while changing
with the times (a flat structure congruent with post-modernism). An open
structure also coheres well with TEC's theology that in Baptism God calls all
Christians to ministry; the other orders of ministry connote particular
functions within the body that an open structure respects.

Second,
TEC might replace its reliance on diocesan financial commitments with endowment
income, crowdsourcing, and outsourcing. TEC's endowment is sufficient to fund
the Presiding Bishop, Anglican and ecumenical relations, and a small program.
Crowdsourcing might fund some of TEC's ministry and mission, i.e., direct
giving from multiple dioceses, congregations, and individuals to particular
ministries or missions of their choice. People and groups give enthusiastically
of time, talent, and treasure when they believe in the program or cause to
which they are donating.

TEC
could also outsource some of its ministries and missions to dioceses,
congregations, or groups willing to take responsibility for a particular
ministry or mission. TEC did this, in effect, decades ago with theological
education, outsourcing responsibility for funding and operating clergy
education to seminaries that, in spite of their links to TEC, now are largely
autonomous. (That model worked well, though the failure of seminaries to adapt
to our post-modern, post-Christendom world suggests that significant changes
are in their future.) A diocese with a large military population might fund and
support the Office for Federal Ministries, paying the salary for the Bishop for
Federal Ministries who would remain a Suffragan to the Presiding Bishop.
Another diocese (or group of dioceses) might take responsibility for youth
ministry, or new church starts, etc. Several dioceses are moving in this
direction, establishing local programs for clergy education. Outsourcing would
both cohere with TREC's key themes and encourage dioceses and congregations to
expand their view of ministry and mission from the local to the national or
international.

Ministries
and missions not funded through endowment income, crowdsourcing, or outsourcing
would end. Any expectation that the current flow of funds from congregations to
TEC via dioceses gives the original donor a feeling of ownership or
participation in the ministry or mission of TEC seems erroneous, perhaps naïve.
The present approach of centralized decision making and assessments better
suited a pre-Information Age Church that depended upon printing to disseminate
information. In today's world, General Convention and Executive Council
approving TEC budgets paternalistically presumes that those bodies can more
faithfully discern God's leading than can the rest of the Church. Crowdsourcing
and outsourcing eliminate that presumption, a presumption at odds with TREC's
key themes of breadth/expansiveness, incarnational theology, and social
engagement/prophetic dissent. Moreover, this approach would foster
entrepreneurialism, encouraging new ministries and missions for which dioceses,
congregations, or ad hoc groups hear a call and have a passion.

Some
entities, like an army, require strong, hierarchical, organization and
structure. But TEC is not an army. And although strong, clear structure and
governance provide some benefits, they can actually impede rather than promote
ministry and mission. Sometimes, a flat, loosely connected organization can
best leverage people's gifts and passions, quickly adapt to new opportunities,
and create community while preserving individuality.

Advantageously,
radically reimagining TEC's structure and finances may create new centripetal
forces to hold us together as a Church united in common prayer. Involving more
people – lay and ordained – in the Church's larger mission may be the best option
for helping a highly individualized, denominationally disengaged constituency
to value our connectional polity. Engaging people in the Church's ministry and
mission, creating linkages that transcend geography by finding common theological
and liturgical ground, will both promote common prayer and common forms of
prayer.

The two
proposals outlined above, admittedly short on specifics, suggest one possible
way to reimagine TEC. Surely other options for radically reimagining TEC exist.
Reform is not the answer. TEC is dramatically out of step with social changes
and appears headed toward oblivion unless it successfully reimagines itself.
Fewer Episcopalians are giving their time to support TEC ministries and
missions; dioceses are increasingly reluctant to fund TEC. Radical reimagining
offers hope for preserving TEC's distinctive liturgical and theological
identity as a church united in common prayer while adapting our structure,
governance, and funding to the exigencies of twenty-first century life.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

The 1979
Book of Common Prayer is the last printed version of the prayer book that The
Episcopal Church (TEC) will ever publish. Three rationales support that
prognostication. First, a growing majority of TEC congregations struggle financially.
They often lack the funds to meet their current expenses, much less purchase
new prayer books. Second, e-books are rapidly overtaking traditional printed
books in popularity. Some Episcopalians already participate in worship by following
the service on a tablet, smartphone, or other electronic device instead of
printed books or a leaflet. Third, TEC is so theologically, liturgically, and
linguistically diverse that developing sufficient support for any prayer book
revision seems problematic. Instead, the number and variety of liturgies
authorized for trial will almost certainly continue to proliferate.

Lamenting
or applauding the shift from printed to electronic media is unproductive. The
change is occurring both rapidly and irreversibly. However, the increasing
reliance on electronic versions of the liturgy represents a troubling and
growing challenge to TEC's identity as a church united by common prayer rather
than common belief. Unlike printed prayer books, altering an electronic version
of the liturgy to suit local needs, preferences, or theology is very easy,
costs little or nothing, and already happens. Furthermore, this ongoing move
toward multiple liturgical forms, some locally adapted, even when authorized by
proper ecclesiastical authority, is a centrifugal force pulling TEC away from
its historic connectional ethos toward a congregational ethos.

Many
Episcopalians value, as do I, our tradition of unity rooted in common prayer
rather than common belief. Is the demise of common prayer inevitable? If not, how
do we preserve common prayer with the shift toward electronic versions of our
liturgy and our growing congregational ethos? Perhaps more basically, how do we
maintain our unity in view of these changes?

In 2012,
the 77th General Convention established a Task Force for Reimagining
the Episcopal Church (TREC) to "create a plan for reforming the Church’s
structures, governance, and administration." If tinkering at the margins
or making other simple fixes to reform structures, governance, and
administration could reinvigorate the denomination, then TEC (or another of the
many denominations experiencing similar declines in attendance, participation,
and giving) would probably have already taken those steps.

TEC
needs a radical makeover, not incremental reform. Radically reimagining TEC –holding
on to the essentials of our identity, letting go of anachronistic
non-essentials, and embracing new forms and styles appropriate for the early
twenty-first century – has the potential to reinvent and reinvigorate TEC while
also charting a path toward preserving unity rooted in common prayer.

TREC, at
their July 2013 meeting, enumerated five key themes for restructuring (their
report is available here):

Breadth/expansiveness

Incarnational view of human life

The arts, liturgy, and mystery

Continuity and change

Social engagement and prophetic dissent

Those
themes represent a good description of who Episcopalians have been and want to
be. However, those themes afford no assurance that TREC's reimagining of the
Church will lead to the substantial changes TEC needs if it is to reinvent and
reinvigorate itself (with God's help, we pray!) as a twenty-first century
missional force.

The
Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1886 and 1888 emphasized the importance of
Church unity and outlined the terms on which Anglicans seek unity. The
Quadrilateral includes two principles essential for a radical reimagining of
The Episcopal Church:

That
in all things of human ordering or human choice, relating to modes of worship and
discipline, or to traditional customs, this Church is ready in the spirit of
love and humility to forego all preferences of her own…

and

The
Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to
the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of
His Church.

In other
words, TEC insists on retaining the historic episcopate but in most other
matters recognizes that neither Scripture nor tradition provides a timeless,
authoritative pattern of ecclesial structure or governance. Thus, the options
for reimagining TEC are numerous and have few inherent limits. Perhaps the
greatest barriers to radically reimagining TEC are entrenched groups and
individuals who enjoy their privileged positions and powers under the status
quo and our own blinders with respect to what may be possible.

Historic
patterns of ecclesiastical organization have ranged from unstructured collegiality
to authoritarian and from almost complete reliance on individual initiative to
corporate clericalism. What pattern and style of organization best suits TEC's
liturgical and theological emphases in ways that accommodate or, better yet,
utilize social changes over which we have no control (e.g., electronic
communication and heightened individualism) to promote the community, ministry,
and mission of God's people in and through TEC?

In the
second part of this essay, I suggest two proposals for a radical makeover,
offering them as conversation starters intended to stretch our thinking about
what is possible and not as definitive ukases.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Jason
Heap, a graduate of Texas Christian University's Brite Divinity School and
Oxford, has applied to the U.S. Navy for commissioning as a chaplain. What
makes Heap unique is that the faith group
endorsing him is the Humanist Society. A former Christian minister who no
longer believes in God, Heap is now an atheist and a humanist. By every standard,
except possibly believing in God, Heap appears an exceptionally well-qualified
chaplain candidate. (For more, cf. the NPR feature, "Should
Military Chaplains Have to Believe in God?")

Should
military chaplains believe in God?

Prominent
universities, including Harvard and Stanford, have concluded that faith in God
is not essential for a chaplain and now, in addition to chaplains from traditional
religions, have humanist chaplains on their chaplaincy staffs.

On
the other side, the U.S. House of Representatives last week approved
legislation requiring military chaplains to believe in a higher power. The bill
seems problematic because it appears to legislate the establishment of religion
and because some Buddhists deny believing in a higher power. Banning some Buddhist
chaplains is perhaps (or not, depending upon how influential one believes
evangelical Christians to be) an unintended consequence of the proposed bill.

Who
is right? Should military chaplains believe in God?

The
larger issue, it seems to me, entails defining the chaplain's role. If the
chaplain's role is to be a caring friend, relied upon by commanders and troops
alike, to render assistance to personnel in cases that one might typically
refer in a civilian context to a psychologist or social worker, then allowing
humanists to serve as chaplains makes sense.

I
object to this understanding of the chaplain's role on two grounds. First, this
shortchanges our military personnel. They deserve the best. Too many chaplains
lack the skills that social work and counseling require. Commanders sometimes
prefer chaplains to trained professionals because commanders believe that
chaplains are more susceptible to command influence than are social workers and
psychologists. Sadly, that assessment, in my experience, was all too often
correct. Troops sometimes prefer chaplains because conversations with a
chaplain are completely confidential. Conversations with social workers and
psychologists are most confidential, though these professionals must report individuals
who pose a threat to themselves or others, or who have a medical problem that
may affect unit readiness. Confidentiality, in either situation, imposes a
threat to well-being or contributes to ill health.

Second,
the Constitutional justification for funding military chaplaincy is to ensure
military personnel the ability to practice their religion in the absence of
civilian religious resources. Troops assigned overseas are generally distant
from English faith communities and personnel in boot camps, military hospitals,
and some other settings may not have ready access, for good military reasons,
to local faith communities. Chaplains provide religious ministry for personnel
of their own faith community, for as many others as the chaplain can accommodate
with integrity, and facilitate free exercise for others.

For
example, the Bishop for Federal Ministries instructed Episcopal military
chaplains that any non-Eucharistic Christian worship was acceptable as a form
of morning or evening prayer. This permitted Episcopal chaplains to lead services
in rotation with other chaplains without having to impose Episcopal formats or
wording. When stationed on Adak, a remote Aleutian island with no civilian
community, a Jewish sailor asked me to conduct a Passover Seder for him. I
declined. If I conducted the Seder, the Seder would be, by definition, a Christian
Seder. However, I told him that if he led the Seder, I would provide the space,
the food, advertise the event, and ensure that we had at least a dozen attend. He
was grateful; I was simply doing my job, facilitating for someone for whom I could
not directly provide.

Buddhist
chaplains, similarly, conduct religious rituals according to the teachings of
their school of Buddhism. Anyone who has visited a Buddhist temple in the
States or abroad may have seen one or more of these rituals. Buddhist chaplains
would, as I did, facilitate for people of other religions (helping a Jew
organize a Seder, a Roman Catholic to find a priest or lay Eucharistic minister,
etc.).

What
would a humanist chaplain do? Do humanists have any distinctive rituals or
practices? If not, why do atheist and agnostic military personnel (who
certainly number more than the 1% of the force who have self-identified as
agnostic or atheist) need a chaplain?

Requiring
chaplains to believe in God unnecessarily and inappropriately entangles the
government with religion. Equally important, the current practice of military
chaplaincy shortchanges the nation, its military personnel, and their family members.
Perhaps Jason Heap's vital contribution to the military chaplaincy is to be the
catalyst for restoring the chaplaincy to its real mission of providing
religious ministry so that armed forces personnel can exercise, when and as militarily
feasible, their right to religious freedom.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

President
Obama has announced that he will seek Congressional approval before taking
military action against Syria. This is an important and constructive move
because it takes a step away from the imperial presidency (the Constitution assigns
Congress the power to declare war) and because it makes military action against
Syria less likely.

The
Episcopal Peace Fellowship has disseminated a Just War analysis of possible
military action against Syria that I wrote. In that essay, I argue that military
action against Syria would not satisfy the just war norms of just cause, right
authority, proportionality, and reasonable chance of success.

The
situation in Syria is deplorable. However, war is the answer to very few
problems and for the U.S. to believe that it can solve another nation's
problems requires great hubris.